Dorran addresses rural Milton-Freewater ambulance service area
By Terry Murry on Friday, August 16th, 2024 in Columbia Basin News More Top Stories
RURAL MILTON-FREEWATER – Umatilla County Commissioner Dan Dorran says that the issue involving the resignation of nine employees from the rural ambulance service area is complicated, but all hands are working to ensure coverage remains constant. One of the Milton-Freewater ASA ambulances is still operating. If there’s a backlog, other agencies will cover.
“Our emergency manager, Sage DeLong, made arrangements to make sure there are manned ambulances and the existing operator was making sure he could respond as well,” Dorran said. One of the complications is Milton-Freewater is not on the county-wide dispatch system so communication is a really big deal.”
Dorran said that his hat is off to all of the mutual aid offered from the other areas. He added that as of Thursday morning he was not aware of any calls that have not been answered from that ASA.
He said that ambulance service areas are a little different from fire districts. Umatilla County has a number of ambulance service areas and each one is governed by a board of directors.
“That’s who that company reports to,” he said. “They don’t report directly to the county, but directly to their board.”
Dorran added that the board of directors does report to the county. He said it will take time for the issues raised to be resolved.
“Moving forward, we’re going to have a lot of questions and a lot of conversation,” he said.
